Epicenter - In-Depth Conversations about Blockchain & Crypto

Nicolas Courtois is a cryptographer and senior lecturer at University College London. He has been studying cryptocurrencies for some time and has written a number of papers on bitcoin. His talk is titled “Cryptographic Security of ECDSA in bitcoin” in which he exposes the security vulnerabilities in the specific variation of the Elliptic Curve digital Signature Algorithm used in bitcoin. Episode links: Slides for this presentation Nicolas Courtois’s Wikipedia Page Personal blog On The Longest Chain Rule and Programmed Self-Destruction of Crypto Currencies paper Nicolas’s Bitcoin Publications This episode is hosted by Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/050

Meni Rosenfeld is Founder of Bitcoil and Chairman of the Israeli Bitcoin Association. Having organized several meetups and conferences in Israel, he is a very active member of the Israeli Bitcoin community. Meni has been studying mining pool reward methods for several years and in 2011, wrote a paper titled “Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems”. This research gave him a broad understanding the reward system landscape and the issues with many of the methods used by pools. He later wrote proposals for alternative non pay-per-share methods and which would render pool hopping impossible: the geometric method and double geometric method. Episode links: Mining Pools Reward Methods Talk - Bitcoin 2013 Conference [YouTube] Analysis of Bitcoin Pooled Mining Reward Systems [paper] Summary of mining pool reward systems [paper] Analysis of hashrate-based double-spending [paper] Meni Rosenfeld's vanity thread [Bitcoin Talk Forum] Geometric method [Bitcoin Talk Forum]: New cheat-proof mining pool scoring method Double geometric method [Bitcoin Talk Forum]: Hopping-proof, low-variance reward system Mine in multiple pools to reduce variance [Bitcoin Talk Forum] Multi-PPS [Bitcoin Talk Forum] ASIC will not centralize Bitcoin mining [Meni’s blog] Blocksize Economics by Gavin Andresen [Bitcoin Foundation] Proof of Activity: Extending Bitcoin’s Proof of Work via Proof of Stake [paper] Israel Bitcoin Meetup Group Israeli Bitcoin Community Facebook Page This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/049

BTC2B Brussels conference on October 16 & 17, 2014 This episode features two parts of a session on Bitcoin marketing. First, Richard Caetano, founder of Handshake and btcReport, talks about the importance of sharing stories to create user engagement. Then, you’ll hear a panel discussion moderated by Richard with Jeremy Garder, Executive Directory of the College Cryptocurrency Network, and Sebastien Couture, as panelists. They talk about how the Bitcoin industry can grow adoption though integrated product & marketing strategies. This episode is hosted by Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/048

The College Cryptocurrency Network is a non-profit organization which aims to provide students, academics, and faculty with the guidance and resources required to start independent Bitcoin clubs on college campuses and in schools. Since being founded in early 2014, the CCN has grown to well over 100 chapters, on every continent, from middle schools to PhD programs. Director of Student Outreach, Jacob Sears, and Creative Director, Dean Masley, join us to talk about the CCN’s work and their personal experiences with starting clubs in their respective universities. We also talked about how the concept of Bitcoin is received by students and the potential for blockchain innovation and adoption on university campuses. Episode links: College Cryptocurrency Network This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/047

Shawn Wilkinson, founder and lead developer of Storj, joins us for our first deep dive into a decentralized application. Storj’s particular domain is the decentralization of cloud storage. Their applications allow users to store their files in a decentralized peer-to-peer network that promises to be more secure and effective. At the same time, it creates a market where people can earn money by renting out spare hard disk space. Topics covered in this episode: Why cloud storage lends itself to decentralization How the efficiency of Storj compares to conventional providers like Dropbox The architecture of Storj including the applications Driveminer and Metadisk How Storj interacts with protocols such as Counterparty and Ethereum The Storjcoin X crowdsale and its economics Episode links: Storj Metadisk Metadisk Beta Driveshare Stroj Talk Storj & Metadisk whitepapers This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/046

Every quarter CoinDesk puts out its excellent State of Bitcoin Report providing a snapshot of where the Bitcoin ecosystem is at. We took this opportunity to go back to our original formation and have a discuss of the report and the state of Bitcoin in general. It was lots of fun! Topics covered in this episode: Bitcoin Adoption Metrics Our January Predictions The continually slumping Bitcoin price Merchant adoption Startup activity and VC investments Episode links: CoinDesk State of Bitcoin Q3 2014 Epicenter Bitcoin Predictions 2014 [EB30 - Radko Albrecht](Bitbond: https://soundcloud.com/epicenterbitcoin/eb-030) This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/045

Mehdi Medjaoui (Co-founder and COO) & Elie Chevignard (CMO) are the two guys behind Oauth.io, a service which aims to provide a simple and standardized way for developers to implement Oath. Working in digital identity management, they have an interesting proposal on how to build personal identity management into the blockchain. This proposition would effectively take the power away from centralized single sign on services like Facebook and Google and make them decentralized. Episode links: Oauth.io API Days OneName NameID Namecoin SQRL This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/044

The Isle of Man has been an area of interest for many Bitcoin companies as of late. The local government of this small British Crown Dependency, located in the middle of the Irish Sea, wants to attract Bitcoin businesses by adopting light regulation as well as providing accessible banking relationships and infrastructure for companies dealing in crypto. This business-friendly approach has made the island an ideal place for tech, aerospace and e-gaming companies to establish, which has been a great benefit for the local economy in the last few decades. As an example, the leading online gaming site Poker Stars now employs some 200 people on the island. With the support of the Economic Development Department, the Isle of Man recently hosted Crypto Valley Summit to help promote their wiliness to work with Bitcoin companies. Siân Jones was at the event and captures this enthusiasm in three interviews, which we discuss on the show: Topics covered in this episode: Peter Greenhill, CEO of e-Gaming Development at Isle of Man Department of Economic Development Paul Davis, CEO of Counting House who specializes in payment solutions Archie Watt, Head of e-business and Micky Swindale, Head of Advisory at the global consultancy firm KPMG Episode links: Crypto Valley Summit Isle of Man Economic Development Department COINsult This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/043

Tom Ding is the CEO and Founder of Koinify, a platform for funding decentralized applications. Think of Koinify as a sort of Angel List to bootstrap and fund a new decentralized economy, specifically decentralized applications. With his company, Tom hopes to help build the decentralized app which help push this technology to the mainstream. With his extensive knowledge of this space, we talked about the future of DACs and DAPPs and discussed some of the challenges these new models are facing, from profitability to the obvious legal aspects. This episode was recorded over a live Google Hangout. It was our first attempt at doing a live video show and unfortunately we didn’t get the recording right. Our apologies for the bad sound quality, we’ll get the next one right. Episode links: Koinify 2020: A Call for DApps and DAOs This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/042

Siân Jones was recently in London for the Inside Bitcoins conference. She interviewed two people with extensive knowledge of regulation and how it should apply to Bitcoin. Marco Santori is Chairman of the regulatory affairs committee of the Bitcoin Foundation and recently appointed Global policy council of for Blockchain. As the New York Department of Financial Services BitLicense proposal nears the end of it’s second 45-day challenge period, Mr. Santori gives his predictions on what the legislation will look like when it is passed, which he expects to happen by the end of this year. Amor Sexton is a lawyer at Adroit in Sydney Australia, a commercial law firm that specializes in Bitcoin and actively represents the Bitcoin industry when hen liaising with the Australian government. In her talk with Siân, she spoke about the Australian government’s recent guidance and draft ruling on the tax treatment of crypto currencies, with regards to income tax, capital gains tax and GST. They point out how these draft rulings differ from those proposed in other jurisdictions and explore how they will affect merchants and Bitcoin holders in the future. Episode links: Inside Bitcoins London COINsult COINsult Blog This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/041